It's Getting A Bit Chilly

I don't want to be Emo McGee. I really don't. But it occurred to me that blog posts aren't born out of happy thoughts, at least for me anyway. They usually form because I have something to say that I can't really say out loud or to anyone in particular. 100% honesty time: even when I have some kind of nugget of wisdom or uplifting moral to the story, I'm only saying it because I'm trying to convince myself it's true, not because I necessarily believe it. For this very reason, I sometimes wish no one at all actually read this blog.

Consider for a second teenagers and their boundless angst. We look at them and think "how could they be so upset over something so trivial? They don't know what REAL problems are." True, they haven't experienced some of life's more advanced complications, but that doesn't make their problems any less real. Your problems scale up as time progresses, so what doesn't seem like a big deal to you now could very well be a grievous trial for a teenager. It's like training Pokemon. Sure, when you've got all eight badges and you're on your way to the Elite Four, Caterpies in Viridian Forest don't pose even the slightest threat. But when you're fresh out of Pallet Town, those same Caterpies could very well knock you out if you're not careful. With experience comes strength, and with that strength comes new challenges. What I'm trying to say is we shouldn't trivialize the plights of others just because we've outgrown the inadequacies they face.

The reason I bring this up is because I look back at some of the older, angstier posts I've written over the course of this blog and think "I was such an idiot back then. How did I let that bother me so much?" But the fact of the matter is, at the time, those were very real concerns weighing heavily on my mind. And I wasn't even a teenager, when I started this blog, I was 22 years old. All I have to do is transport myself mentally to a given time, and then it's like "ohhhhh yeah... I remember what that was like. That was kinda rough."

My life isn't awful right now; far from it, in fact. I have a good job, my family and I are all relatively healthy, my living conditions are stable, and I just bought a new car less than a month ago. There are just... things that make me sad. It's sort of a relief to actually say that, and this is one of the only places I can do it. It's my job to be in a good mood for five hours a night, whether I actually am or not, so it's nice to not have to force a smile for a change. This, of course, is why I started primarily stealth-blogging... I don't really want to freely admit that to most people, and my posts toward the end of 2012 were starting to take on a very downtrodden tone. But I'm not looking for a pity party. I just want to be able to say what it is I'm thinking, especially when I've got quite a bit on my mind, as I do now. Maybe now that I've presented this informal confession, I'll start doing that more often.